times you be
ready. I do not know how much powder it will take to knock off the big
bug as he is half human. Once I blow this insect powder at the same time
as the purifying blast is to take place, you two be ready to jump
Agrodyte. I noticed that a small purple light flashes on over the
monitor just before that stuff turns loose. It is a warning so the
beetleheads can take deep breaths."

"Sep," D'Ambrosia Zahooli says. "I take back all the insults of the past
five hours. Shake."

"I am doin' that already," I says. "We have to work fast while we are in
the underground river."

We wait. The Neofeuhrer comes walking back to where we are sitting. The
purple light flashes on, and I count to three. Just as the blast of air
loaded with XYB plus cuts loose I throw all the bug powder left in the
box into the current. Hitler Number Three breathes in a big gob of it
and buckles a little at the knees.

"Grab him!" I screech. "Don't let him yank that disintegrator loose. Hit
him with anything you see, pals!"

I see the other beetleheads collapse like they had been hit with
bulldozers and I know now that insecticide is more dangerous in Subterro
than all the radioactivity harnessed up on six planets.

Agrodyte Hitler, however, has some moxey left in him as he has two of
his hands around Wurpz's throat, the third around Zahooli's leg and is
reaching for a ray Betsy with his fourth. He grabs the disintegrator
just as I belt him over his ugly noggin with a wrench about two feet
long and which was certainly not made of aluminum or balsa wood.

"Himmel!" the Neofeuhrer gulps. "Ach du lebensraum!" He has to be hit
once more which is enough and we tie him up with rope that looks like it
was made out of plutonium filaments.

"Well," I says. "We have a sub from Subterro. Wurpz, you just sit there
at the controls and make sure that needle on the big dial don't move as
I am sure this creep has it on robot so that this tub will automatically
follow the course of the river."

"We are sure takin' a powder," D'Ambrosia yelps. "Look at the monitor!"

We see fish gaping at us from the screen that even Earth citizens with
delirium tremens never saw, and I look quite anxiously at the instrument
panel.

"A thousand miles per and we are climbin'," I says. "I am glad this
Hitler used old Germanic on his subs, and that I majored in it once.
I--er--I am gettin' arthritis all at once! The bends! Uh--er--look, peel
them suits off the other cr